Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators - "Live at the Roxy 9.25.14"

On April 29th, 2015, I got the opportunity to see these guys in concert. It was a fairly small place called the Soul Kitchen. It was my second concert after seeing the North Mississippi Allstars at that same venue in November of 2014. It was awesome and it made me realize how a lot of bands want you to listen to their studio stuff instead of their live stuff. Some bands throw all of their effort into the studio (making some songs practically unplayable live in the process) and only tour because it's part of the job. Those bands don't often sound all that good or interesting live. 

Slash has never been like that. 

Slash's music is actually sometimes limited by the studio. Even when he played on the Use Your Illusion albums where everything under the sun was thrown in it still didn't quite tap into the raw energy you get from a live performance of his. His most recent studio effort with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators is fantastic, but despite the intensity and the diversity of the 17 songs on World on Fire there's still that sense that these songs aren't meant just for the studio. There's something missing. They are missing the yells of a feverous crowd. That's the only way they could have been made better. 

It's just a credit to the musicianship of this group that they can play just as well live as they can in the studio. 

Slash has one helluva band right now and Live at the Roxy showcases it quite brilliantly much in the way that Made in Stoke did, but this time Slash's material with Myles gets the showcase since they have actually recorded and released two whole studio albums together since then. 

This setlist is slightly different from when I saw them, but it's just as impressive and very crowd-pleasing. Of course, the crowd during this concert seemed kind of dull compared to the crowd I was a part of, but that's neither here nor there. (They should have filmed this Mobile, Alabama, though.)

I'm not sure if this is a classic live album, but it's very good. It's a (almost) whole concert with all of the mistakes and everything else that should be in a concert. The only thing that sort of strikes me as odd is the blu-ray. The camera work is a bit frantic, but that's just the way a lot of camera work is for concerts these days. That's not really a deal breaker. 

What is strange is the presence of only 17 songs on the blu-ray. I'm not saying 17 songs is bad, but four of those songs are listed as "bonus tracks" and are only available from the options menu. You can't actually watch those four bonus songs as part of the main feature. So that leaves thirteen of the original 20 songs that were played live at the concert as the main feature. I'm not sure the reason for the odd song selection and deletion. Certainly all of the songs could have been included on the blu-ray. Normally, it seems like blu-rays and DVDs contain more songs than their strictly audio counterparts. The CD release actually has more with 19 of the 20 songs performed. (Automatic Overdrive got the shaft on all of the formats for some reason.)

Halo and Doctor Alibi were excluded from blu-ray release, but they are on the CD and all of the "bonus tracks" from the blu-ray are performed in their proper order on the CD release. 

So I'm not sure if the blu-ray is quite as "must have" as the CD since it includes less of the actual concert and kind of butchers it by placing four of the songs separate and dismisses two other songs from the CD entirely. 

So this is the blu-ray listing:

Ghost

Nightrain

Back from Cali

You Could Be Mine

Rocket Queen

Bent to Fly

Starlight

You're a Lie

World on Fire

Anastasia

Sweet Child O' Mine

Slither

Paradise City

Bonus Tracks:

Stone Blind

You're Crazy (Todd Kearns vocal)

Wicked Stone

30 Years to Life

And this is the CD:

Disc One:

Ghost

Nightrain

Halo

Back from Cali

Stone Blind

You Could Be Mine

Doctor Alibi (Todd Kearns vocal)

You're Crazy (Todd Kearns vocal)

Wicked Stone

30 Years to Life

Rocket Queen

Disc Two:

Bent to Fly

Starlight

You're a Lie

World on Fire

Anastasia

Sweet Child O' Mine

Slither

Paradise City

Personally, I think the CD is the way to go with this release. The blu-ray was good, but it could have been much better with a bit more care given to the original setlist. I suppose the CD can be forgiven or only omitting one song by comparison. 

Poor Automatic Overdrive has no friends. Awww. I rather like that song, too. Still, this is a pretty awesome concert. Just not a perfect video presentation compared to what the actual concert probably was.